Amazon warned me it
had updated the e-book process behind the curtain. Updates are constant. This
update, though, is worth a mention. It’s far easier for Amazon to point out
quality issues concerning my e-books. I thought over all the gruesome alerts
I’ve been sent since the update kicked in…oh, no, there aren’t any on file. Why
not? Just lucky, I guess. That must be it. Just lucky.
I recall the searing memories of THAT TIME.
THAT
TIME was the time I spent eight ultra-long weeks formatting my first
e-book. And formatting. Then formatting. Formatting some more. With a bit of
formatting thrown in. Followed by a hint of formatting. With a smidgeon of
formatting after that. On the menu tonight and every night: vindaloo and…no, of
course not. Formatting. With a hint of lemon.
No, I didn’t learn the hard way.
(A lie was told there, surely.)
I learned the very hard way.
(True.)
*
I stared at those
files from front through to back and back again. That was the only way to fly.
I told myself this. No matter how drudged-up the drudgery was, I had to check
every effing page from front to back and all the way back to the front again.
Good job I did. That way, I discovered
formatting glitches that only showed up when you flipped back for more than
four pages at a time. There’s page 77. Let us take a dainty trip back in time
to page 76. No problem. Now let us traipse to the very end of the book, and
walk all the way to the start, page by bloody page.
From page 82 we run to 81, 80, 79, 78,
there’s page 77, and now page 76 with no prob…what the blue veiny cheese is going on?! Half the page is in print
twice the size. How? Why? And what’s this glitch that doesn’t show on the page
unless I am digitally thumbing back for more than a few pages?
Invisible gremlin is invisible. (Shakes fist
at invisible gremlin. Spins slowly in circle, hoping to shake fist in general
direction of invisible gremlin.)
I’d uncover the formatting problem in the
original file and erase it. Occasionally, I’d accidentally import a gremlin
from a wildly different file. Or I’d find myself using an older file that had
ancient formatting built into it where you couldn’t see anything. There’s a
space in the file, and, though there’s no text at that space, the text that
could go there would definitely be in a green font. (For reasons beyond me.)
And I’d change the green font to black. The
invisible formatting problem went away.
*
When I downloaded
free samples of books, I checked formatting in those and discovered that paging
back through someone’s story spewed up all sorts of nonsense you didn’t
normally see if you were just going forward. What if you were interrupted turning
a digital page and you moved back to read the last paragraph again? All these
spanners falling out of the machine, why, they must come from somewhere.
They came from Belgium
(Unable to verify this at the time of
writing. But definitely Belgium Mozambique
to Belgium
*
Old news. I thought
I’d revisit that old news on seeing the new news that I’ll receive direct
updates on the Amazon bookshelf, warning of quality issues. Quality? That means
formatting issues, and I buried most of those in a deep grave during eight
weeks of teaspoon-based digging.
Except…I remember one persistent glitch I
couldn’t shake for a year, after publication. One night, I resolved to bury
that gremlin. I tried everything. Except one basic thing. That was all I had
left. The last item on my list. Yes, I should’ve gone straight to the last item
on my list.
Life never works out that way. If I’d
skipped the first thing to go and check the last thing, the last thing wouldn’t
have been the very thing – just one more thing. It’s always the last thing, no
matter where it is on your list. If it is on your list at all.
Well, I had a list and I exhausted it. This
is a detour down memory lane, into levels of formatting that still apply, even
if the file processing procedures rolled over and died in the name of
simplicity. Of course, I welcomed the simplicity. Shame it didn’t rear its head
earlier.
But nay, I must not speak of the dreaded
Table of Contents and its associated file madness that almost worked for me. Damn
that five-minute window of opporchancity in which it all looked golden. As
golden as a desert mirage. And as useful. I found my own simple solution for
dealing with that nest of vipers. Confront complexity. Kill it with fire. Eat a
hearty meal. Think no more of that nonsense.
So what are quality issues? The things I’ve
already described. Imported fragments of troublesome text that mess with the
flow of the book when clicking on a chapter link or running back and forth
across text. I nailed all the obvious problems in eight weeks of dealing with a
single file, and never had a major beef with Amazon over quality warnings.
Never had a minor beef, either.
I went from formatting a book in eight weeks
to formatting a book inside a day. After that, I had my story templates set up so
that I’d adjust formatting on the go. The learning of it was tedious, performed
with intermittent internet access. But once done, I was set. I threw myself at
the task with relentless amounts of coffee powering my endeavours. And I was
all the better for that caffeinated preparation.
*
Yes, I’ve written
about all this nonsense before. I never expected to write of it again. Yet here
we are, with the news down from Amazon’s mountain. I’ll be more connected, more
involved, with receiving quality warnings over the formatting of my books.
Technically, not receiving quality warnings.
In talking about writing, you talk the talk
no one wants to hear about. There is drudgery. It can be tax drudgery, official
form footeriness, or the emptiness of the coffee receptacle calling to be
refilled. Technical crap clogs your day. On some of those days, back when I
toiled in the wilderness for eight weeks, I’d encounter a glitch that occupied
me all day long, and I’d have nothing to show for my toil as the sun crashed
over the horizon.
I’d have to wait for a new dawn, and the
opporchancity to gain a slice of that limited internet access, before I’d see
the mouldy fruits of my efforts crawl into the shadows to die their lingering
deaths.
Scribble note on piece of paper.
Attempt to fix the problem right there.
Fail.
Think of another solution.
Fail.
Leave the library and head home to the
office. Thrash out the problem on a bloodstained floor. Imagine that I’d fixed
the grief. Believe that. Start again the next day, and the next. I don’t know
how I managed. With a faraway look, a steady supply of triple-choc muffins, and
the patience of two saints – borrowed for the duration.
Flashback. I blasted off from the library’s
internet access and installed my own. Today, I could devote an entire day and
night to online research into a formatting problem. No need to go through
driving rain to head back and forth, when back and forth is done at the click
of a mouse.
Did much else change? File processing grew
far easier. There were changes that never affected the type of books I put
together. For example, if you constructed a book with a load of charts and
mathematical tables, I’d imagine you saw your share of battle in the formatting
wars.
*
Once I found my way
onto the formatting path, out of the deep thickets, I was fine. I could’ve paid
for the formatting. But what would I have learned from slapping the cash down?
How to do things the easy way, without picking up a good working knowledge of
the clockwork mechanisms holding my books together?
I’m not knocking paying for formatting if
you can’t stand the drudgery. Though this is writing under discussion. In
talking at any length about writing, you talk the talk no one ever wants to
hear about. There is drudgery. Word on word, paragraph by paragraph. Rewarding
drudgery, to be sure.
Ah, the glamorous world of typing for hours
on end with no end in sight. I long-ago rejected the notion of voice
recognition software when the voice recognition software rejected my Scottish
tones. So typing it must be. In my alternative history of the world, Scotland
